Give the prospects a free glossy monthly magazine (via email) focused on improving their bottom line with online marketing secrets - which has already been created for you - (PLR rights), and then advertise your consulting business inside.

Call them to book an appointment - the mag would have warmed them up and only you can put the advice into action when they hire you !!

Are you doing it at home with a color printer or are you having them printed at Kinkos or by an Internet printing company?

I have that magazine, curious how you deliver.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by MarkJez

Give the prospects a free glossy monthly magazine (via email) focused on improving their bottom line with online marketing secrets - which has already been created for you - (PLR rights), and then advertise your consulting business inside.

Call them to book an appointment - the mag would have warmed them up and only you can put the advice into action when they hire you !!

For me I like to meet the business owners face to face (the element of surprise)
I like the idea of walking in cold and walking out hot!

I agree. There has been nothing more effective than talking to them face to face. They can't hang up on you and are less likely to cuss you out when they are looking right at you. Not impossible, but less likely.

I'm not sure if I have a favorite way. My 3 favorite right now are craigslist, youtube and facebook. But my real favorite is referals. I love working my way into social circles, building trust, overdelivering, then having people recommend me to friends.

I think real estate agents even have a name for this. "Spheres of influence" and what have you. One guy I met through my brother who is the vice president of smith barney brokerage firm. And this guy owns 3 different businesses. At the time, I realized that he talks to A LOT of people. More people than my brother does. So the first thing I asked myself was "how am I going to become a part of this guys circle?" What I did, was act like a NORMAL person, rather than a marketer. Like a friend, more than a salesman. If you've ever seen how the governor of NJ talks to people, thats kinda how I acted. Very blunt and direct, but made it clear that I cared about his success.

Just getting into that 1 circle has gotten me over a dozen referals in the last 6 months. He has friends of his own who own businesses... who have friends/family who thier own businesses and so on. Thats why, if you ever meet someone who is both wealthy and social, make sure you work on building trust with these types. Once I realized how many friends this guy has, and how often he goes out to socialize on the weekends, I realized there was a lot of money to be made just by KNOWING HIM.

So you really need to know an opportunity when you see one. And don't be afraid. I'm not 1/10th as cool/funny as this guy is and I think I won him over just by acting like a normal person. I'd randomly call him up to see how things were going, offer him marketing advice etc. I did this for a few months and our relationship turned into more of a friendship. Till this day, I still get referals from this guy, and a lot of repeat work as well.

Most profitable per hour invested-speaking to groups of business owners.
Generates prospects easiest to close-referrals from happy clients
Most effortless to work with-clients coming after they see my work, and follow it to me.
Most profitable when the first three are not available-cold calling for speaking gigs.

We have used postcards which are very effective. We include eye-catching offer on the card and we did get enormous response, but yes word of mouth is the best in my opinion. We do ask for referral from anyone we do business with.

I'm not sure if I have a favorite way. My 3 favorite right now are craigslist, youtube and facebook. But my real favorite is referals. I love working my way into social circles, building trust, overdelivering, then having people recommend me to friends.

I think real estate agents even have a name for this. "Spheres of influence" and what have you. One guy I met through my brother who is the vice president of smith barney brokerage firm. And this guy owns 3 different businesses. At the time, I realized that he talks to A LOT of people. More people than my brother does. So the first thing I asked myself was "how am I going to become a part of this guys circle?" What I did, was act like a NORMAL person, rather than a marketer. Like a friend, more than a salesman. If you've ever seen how the governor of NJ talks to people, thats kinda how I acted. Very blunt and direct, but made it clear that I cared about his success.

Just getting into that 1 circle has gotten me over a dozen referals in the last 6 months. He has friends of his own who own businesses... who have friends/family who thier own businesses and so on. Thats why, if you ever meet someone who is both wealthy and social, make sure you work on building trust with these types. Once I realized how many friends this guy has, and how often he goes out to socialize on the weekends, I realized there was a lot of money to be made just by KNOWING HIM.

So you really need to know an opportunity when you see one. And don't be afraid. I'm not 1/10th as cool/funny as this guy is and I think I won him over just by acting like a normal person. I'd randomly call him up to see how things were going, offer him marketing advice etc. I did this for a few months and our relationship turned into more of a friendship. Till this day, I still get referals from this guy, and a lot of repeat work as well.

So seriously, referals are awesome.

-Red

very sound advice.

Its amazing when you actually tell people you care and want them to succeed. They sort of listen to you in a whole new light.

Romeo Caporaso is a tax agent and small business owner in Australia. I have successfully used wordpress websites to gain new clients in my small business and am passionate about helping other businesses do this too.

I would suggest the most "realistic way" for a beginner is cold calling, but my FAVORITE way is through email, or an ad...there is nothing like business coming in passively. I have closed 20k commissions via email without ever picking up a phone.

Its kinda hard to scale that sort of thing, and telemarketing is easy to scale predictibly, once you get a room going...but when they come in like gravy here and there from ads... passive business is awesome.

In my experience though, that passive business can only be achieved by seasoned people. There are alot of elements from good copy, to good targeting, to synergistic presentation materials that work together... lots of details in achieving passive business, but once you have them in place its pretty cool.

I wrote a million dollars in business through telemarketing before I even made my FIRST dollar from an ad or passive stream. Now I think I have the hang of the whole non telemarketing "marketing" aspect... I get passive biz all the time.

Still , I think telemarketing is the quickest answer for most beginners, and the only one thats almost guaranteed.

I would suggest the most "realistic way" for a beginner is cold calling, but my FAVORITE way is through email, or an ad...there is nothing like business coming in passively. I have closed 20k commissions via email without ever picking up a phone.

.

20k is pretty sweet Johnny boy!.

And I bet with some testing, with email copy or ad copy you could double your profits.

And I bet with some testing, with email copy or ad copy you could double your profits.

Yeah it is. Honestly its not with offline marketing products though...havent cracked that one yet. Its with brokering manufacturing deals on Alibaba.

I can email sellers and email buyers and put them together... I have made TONS of these sales through time, through email alone...because of language barriers with different countries doing biz... Alot of them prefer email communication.

I havent sold "websites" through email yet. But have sold literally hundreds (to put it in a believable form because its really alot more than hundreds...) of websites through telemarketing.

I would suggest the most "realistic way" for a beginner is cold calling, but my FAVORITE way is through email, or an ad...there is nothing like business coming in passively. I have closed 20k commissions via email without ever picking up a phone.

Its kinda hard to scale that sort of thing, and telemarketing is easy to scale predictibly, once you get a room going...but when they come in like gravy here and there from ads... passive business is awesome.

In my experience though, that passive business can only be achieved by seasoned people. There are alot of elements from good copy, to good targeting, to synergistic presentation materials that work together... lots of details in achieving passive business, but once you have them in place its pretty cool.

I wrote a million dollars in business through telemarketing before I even made my FIRST dollar from an ad or passive stream. Now I think I have the hang of the whole non telemarketing "marketing" aspect... I get passive biz all the time.

Still , I think telemarketing is the quickest answer for most beginners, and the only one thats almost guaranteed.

E-mail? John, I am very surprised to hear you say this.

This is obviously not cold-emailing, right? (although i just sent out 110 mass cold-emails about 15 min ago)..

This is obviously not cold-emailing, right? (although i just sent out 110 mass cold-emails about 15 min ago)..

What is your email script like?

Well, yes it is cold emailing, but you probably wouldnt benefit directly from my way of doing it, however maybe inadvertently.

What I will do is cold call a list of manufacturers in a given niche, who always have millions of dollars in buy backs, surplus and liability assets laying around at the end of the year taking up warehouse space. This is product that they have written off as a loss, cant sell back to their primary market... and its costing them now in warehouse space... They dont want it going back out into their market even as "seconds".... they want it shipped to other countries far away from their primary market. They would rather throw it away- hundreds of thousands of units.

So I cold call them, find out what they have taking up warehouse space.

Create a brokering deal where I can sell it overseas for pennies on the manufacturing dollar...

They will have say a $20.00(retail) product and need to unload it so bad that they will take 30 cents per unit if you can get rid of the whole lot of say 50,000 units. (Less than manufacturing cost).

So I mark it up to 50 or 60 cents per unit... and then I go to Alibaba.com and I find people who are looking for large quantities (truckloads) of that kind of product. I create an email offer (template), and I manually email them one by one with the offer.

I may send out 30 emails, and I will get about 10 responses back, and then 3 of those turn into decent prospects and after a couple weeks of emailing back and forth one will buy the load.

I get them to wire the money to the manufacturer and they pay me my mark up.

Up until a couple of years ago I had done this consistently for a few years.... and have made scores of sales. I once even pulled an urgency tactic and closed a truckload in 24 hours and cleared Almost 8 grand in commission alone, for just a few hours work. Literally I think this guy bought within 3 emails the same day.

Some go like that and others take weeks to nurture, but its all by email and only takes a very little amount of time daily to keep up with.

Hope this helps.

Ps. The conversion is high because Im matching up a guy with 50,000 gallons of excess house paint let say, to a list of 200 people on alibaba from other countries who are BEGGING someone to give them a below wholesale deal on a couple of truckloads of house paint.

It takes a couple of weeks of email negotiations to close a deal usually, sometimes a month even...but its 100% email....most of the customers do not speak good English if ANY. I write them and they probably have translators who read my email back to them in many cases and help negotiate... in any event, most of them prefer internet to phone.

Because of the way the simple system is structured... basically matching a liquidation seller with a person who is looking for a load of that kind of product, makes the conversion is higher than most other cold email.

People on trades sites are SOLICITING you to send them quotes on these loads, whatever kind they are.... They buy thousands of different things. Go check out Alibaba yourself and you will see what I mean.

My only special knowledge here is knowing how to get a manufacturer to give you a good brokering deal. The below manufacturers price , and the demand for the product does the rest...you just email and haggle via email. If you have to come down ten cents its cool because you have that flexibility when acting as a broker who works by marking things up.

Well, yes it is cold emailing, but you probably wouldnt benefit directly from my way of doing it, however maybe inadvertently.

What I will do is cold call a list of manufacturers in a given niche, who always have millions of dollars in buy backs, surplus and liability assets laying around at the end of the year taking up warehouse space. This is product that they have written off as a loss, cant sell back to their primary market... and its costing them now in warehouse space... They dont want it going back out into their market even as "seconds".... they want it shipped to other countries far away from their primary market. They would rather throw it away- hundreds of thousands of units.

So I cold call them, find out what they have taking up warehouse space.

Create a brokering deal where I can sell it overseas for pennies on the manufacturing dollar...

They will have say a $20.00(retail) product and need to unload it so bad that they will take 30 cents per unit if you can get rid of the whole lot of say 50,000 units. (Less than manufacturing cost).

So I mark it up to 50 or 60 cents per unit... and then I go to Alibaba.com and I find people who are looking for large quantities (truckloads) of that kind of product. I create an email offer (template), and I manually email them one by one with the offer.

I may send out 30 emails, and I will get about 10 responses back, and then 3 of those turn into decent prospects and after a couple weeks of emailing back and forth one will buy the load.

I get them to wire the money to the manufacturer and they pay me my mark up.

Up until a couple of years ago I had done this consistently for a few years.... and have made scores of sales. I once even pulled an urgency tactic and closed a truckload in 24 hours and cleared Almost 8 grand in commission alone, for just a few hours work. Literally I think this guy bought within 3 emails the same day.

Some go like that and others take weeks to nurture, but its all by email and only takes a very little amount of time daily to keep up with.

Hope this helps.

Ps. The conversion is high because Im matching up a guy with 50,000 gallons of excess house paint let say, to a list of 200 people on alibaba from other countries who are BEGGING someone to give them a below wholesale deal on a couple of truckloads of house paint.

It takes a couple of weeks of email negotiations to close a deal usually, sometimes a month even...but its 100% email....most of the customers do not speak good English if ANY. I write them and they probably have translators who read my email back to them in many cases and help negotiate... in any event, most of them prefer internet to phone.

Because of the way the simple system is structured... basically matching a liquidation seller with a person who is looking for a load of that kind of product, makes the conversion is higher than most other cold email.

People on trades sites are SOLICITING you to send them quotes on these loads, whatever kind they are.... They buy thousands of different things. Go check out Alibaba yourself and you will see what I mean.

My only special knowledge here is knowing how to get a manufacturer to give you a good brokering deal. The below manufacturers price , and the demand for the product does the rest...you just email and haggle via email. If you have to come down ten cents its cool because you have that flexibility when acting as a broker who works by marking things up.

Oh very very nice work there john. Nice going there to work smarter and not harder being the middle man! Gansta stuff there.

Well, yes it is cold emailing, but you probably wouldnt benefit directly from my way of doing it, however maybe inadvertently.

What I will do is cold call a list of manufacturers in a given niche, who always have millions of dollars in buy backs, surplus and liability assets laying around at the end of the year taking up warehouse space. This is product that they have written off as a loss, cant sell back to their primary market... and its costing them now in warehouse space... They dont want it going back out into their market even as "seconds".... they want it shipped to other countries far away from their primary market. They would rather throw it away- hundreds of thousands of units.

So I cold call them, find out what they have taking up warehouse space.

Create a brokering deal where I can sell it overseas for pennies on the manufacturing dollar...

They will have say a $20.00(retail) product and need to unload it so bad that they will take 30 cents per unit if you can get rid of the whole lot of say 50,000 units. (Less than manufacturing cost).

So I mark it up to 50 or 60 cents per unit... and then I go to Alibaba.com and I find people who are looking for large quantities (truckloads) of that kind of product. I create an email offer (template), and I manually email them one by one with the offer.

I may send out 30 emails, and I will get about 10 responses back, and then 3 of those turn into decent prospects and after a couple weeks of emailing back and forth one will buy the load.

I get them to wire the money to the manufacturer and they pay me my mark up.

Up until a couple of years ago I had done this consistently for a few years.... and have made scores of sales. I once even pulled an urgency tactic and closed a truckload in 24 hours and cleared Almost 8 grand in commission alone, for just a few hours work. Literally I think this guy bought within 3 emails the same day.

Some go like that and others take weeks to nurture, but its all by email and only takes a very little amount of time daily to keep up with.

Hope this helps.

Ps. The conversion is high because Im matching up a guy with 50,000 gallons of excess house paint let say, to a list of 200 people on alibaba from other countries who are BEGGING someone to give them a below wholesale deal on a couple of truckloads of house paint.

It takes a couple of weeks of email negotiations to close a deal usually, sometimes a month even...but its 100% email....most of the customers do not speak good English if ANY. I write them and they probably have translators who read my email back to them in many cases and help negotiate... in any event, most of them prefer internet to phone.

Because of the way the simple system is structured... basically matching a liquidation seller with a person who is looking for a load of that kind of product, makes the conversion is higher than most other cold email.

People on trades sites are SOLICITING you to send them quotes on these loads, whatever kind they are.... They buy thousands of different things. Go check out Alibaba yourself and you will see what I mean.

My only special knowledge here is knowing how to get a manufacturer to give you a good brokering deal. The below manufacturers price , and the demand for the product does the rest...you just email and haggle via email. If you have to come down ten cents its cool because you have that flexibility when acting as a broker who works by marking things up.

John, just wanted to say thanks for that info. I always wanted to do something along those lines as from my previous work before marketing I delt with alot of companies like these. Do you have any material to read for this kind of project?

And to answer the thread, networking is my favorite method of generating leads. I always make sure to provide more then expected and have that "wow" factor for my clients and receive constant refferals for doing so.

Not really. I put something out on it a couple of years ago but then closed it. I dont think I communicated it well. I could do a better job if I went at it again, but there may not be enough demand for the information to justify the time from what I see. It seems only a small percentage of people really get this concept, either that or Im communicating wrong.

I kind of invented alot of it, even though the basic premise is pretty much classic, so there are some areas where its hard to communicate it in terms that everyone relates to.

Not really. I put something out on it a couple of years ago but then closed it. I dont think I communicated it well. I could do a better job if I went at it again, but there may not be enough demand for the information to justify the time from what I see. It seems only a small percentage of people really get this concept, either that or Im communicating wrong.

I kind of invented alot of it, even though the basic premise is pretty much classic, so there are some areas where its hard to communicate it in terms that everyone relates to.

Thanks for that post John. Any suggestions on finding niche industries? Are you cold calling local people and selling internationally?

EDIT: Duh, I answered the wrong question in the wrong post, regarding the wrong business model.

Originally Posted by stranger11

Thanks for that post John. Any suggestions on finding niche industries? Are you cold calling local people and selling internationally?

Yes. I cold called manufacturers from the Thomas Registry,, to find manufacturers with large quantities of distressed merchandise.and focused on the Wallpaper niche since that was my first deal.... Inadvertantly I ended up doing alot of home decor type deals, with furniture and paint and curtains...things of that nature.

Because of the way taxes work in the US, American manufacturers are particularly receptive because at the end of the year they can write off a million of units, then resell them for pennies per unit on the secondary market. They would just as soon throw the stuff away, so if you can help them make a few dollars and get the cost of moving it out of the warehouse covered in the process, you are a huge blessing to them.

This also enables you to offer amazing deals to people in other countries who cant afford to buy large quantities at wholesale, nor for one reason or another can they establish major distribution deals... and in many cases, even if they could, their customer base cant tolerate the kinds of retail prices they would have to sell for, so they buy liquidation loads.

That was helpful. Did you sell to merchants in countries with a relatively high currency like Australia, Canada, Singapore... or to anywhere? I live in Toronto, Canada, so hopefully I can find something similar.

Originally Posted by John Durham

EDIT: Duh, I answered the wrong question in the wrong post, regarding the wrong business model.

Yes. I cold called manufacturers from the Thomas Registry,, to find manufacturers with large quantities of distressed merchandise.and focused on the Wallpaper niche since that was my first deal.... Inadvertantly I ended up doing alot of home decor type deals, with furniture and paint and curtains...things of that nature.

Because of the way taxes work in the US, American manufacturers are particularly receptive because at the end of the year they can write off a million of units, then resell them for pennies per unit on the secondary market. They would just as soon throw the stuff away, so if you can help them make a few dollars and get the cost of moving it out of the warehouse covered in the process, you are a huge blessing to them.

This also enables you to offer amazing deals to people in other countries who cant afford to buy large quantities at wholesale, nor for one reason or another can they establish major distribution deals... and in many cases, even if they could, their customer base cant tolerate the kinds of retail prices they would have to sell for, so they buy liquidation loads.

That was helpful. Did you sell to merchants in countries with a relatively high currency like Australia, Canada, Singapore... or to anywhere? I live in Toronto, Canada, so hopefully I can find something similar.

Mostly to China and England, they were the best customers for me and what I was offering. Chinese are big on Wallpaper, and so are people from England, but I have sold to Bulgaria...all kinds of places. My first customer was from bulgaria, and my biggest repeat customers from China.

Another thing is that selling to SOME countries, depending on where you are is hard because the shipping cost can equal the price of the actual loads themselves, so it doubles their price.

I even sold 17 loads to Nigeria, so they arent ALL bad buyers there. The hardest country to sell to honestly was India.

Indian buyers , its not cliche even though it sounds that way, will haggle with you for a million years and kick tires and never buy unless you practically GIVE it to them. I have sold more to Nigeria and Romania than I have India. India buyers are also the ones who act like they are interested the most...then they will go back and forth and waste your time for months on end in my experience. They REALLY get into this thing of flashing around "Im a Buyer. you must serve me..." , then you jump through hoops and they never buy.

I love people from India as people, but the wholesale buyers there?

I would rather pull my own teeth than have to think about dealing with them.

Indian buyers , its not cliche even though it sounds that way, will haggle with you for a million years and kick tires and never buy unless you practically GIVE it to them. I have sold more to Nigeria and Romania than I have India. India buyers are also the ones who act like they are interested the most...then they will go back and forth and waste your time for months on end in my experience. They REALLY get into this thing of flashing around "Im a Buyer. you must serve me..." , then you jump through hoops and they never buy.

I love people from India as people, but the wholesale buyers there?

I would rather pull my own teeth than have to think about dealing with them.

Hope this helps,

-JD

HA! I have had the same experience. I've sold to people fresh from just about every country. (although not to another country), and people recently moved here from India are the hardest for me to sell.

I've been in their homes, met their families, and always been treated well.
I have nothing against them as people....

But I have never made a completed sale to an Indian consumer. Never.
Not even at retail in my store.

Which is very strange. I've been to their homes, and seen nice furnishings, so I know they do buy stuff.

Just not from me. I have just never figured out the combination to unlock their mind.

HA! I have had the same experience. I've sold to people fresh from just about every country. (although not to another country), and people recently moved here from India are the hardest for me to sell.

I've been in their homes, met their families, and always been treated well.
I have nothing against them as people....

But I have never made a completed sale to an Indian consumer. Never.
Not even at retail in my store.

Which is very strange. I've been to their homes, and seen nice furnishings, so I know they do buy stuff.

Just not from me. I have just never figured out the combination to unlock their mind.

You just need to sell ONE, then they send all their friends and family to you.

Also, if you are just brokering the deals, how does payment work? The buyer pays the seller, the seller pays you? Do you ever have trouble collecting payment?

If the seller and buyer are already in contact, how do you get repeat deals? They no longer need you since they already have contact with each other.

Originally Posted by John Durham

Mostly to China and England, they were the best customers for me and what I was offering. Chinese are big on Wallpaper, and so are people from England, but I have sold to Bulgaria...all kinds of places. My first customer was from bulgaria, and my biggest repeat customers from China.

Another thing is that selling to SOME countries, depending on where you are is hard because the shipping cost can equal the price of the actual loads themselves, so it doubles their price.

I even sold 17 loads to Nigeria, so they arent ALL bad buyers there. The hardest country to sell to honestly was India.

Indian buyers , its not cliche even though it sounds that way, will haggle with you for a million years and kick tires and never buy unless you practically GIVE it to them. I have sold more to Nigeria and Romania than I have India. India buyers are also the ones who act like they are interested the most...then they will go back and forth and waste your time for months on end in my experience. They REALLY get into this thing of flashing around "Im a Buyer. you must serve me..." , then you jump through hoops and they never buy.

I love people from India as people, but the wholesale buyers there?

I would rather pull my own teeth than have to think about dealing with them.

Also, if you are just brokering the deals, how does payment work? The buyer pays the seller, the seller pays you? Do you ever have trouble collecting payment?

If the seller and buyer are already in contact, how do you get repeat deals? They no longer need you since they already have contact with each other.

No prob Stranger, you can do this from ANYWHERE...

1: Can you do this from Canada?

I had a WF guy here from Russia make a $15,000 commission on a sale 8 weeks after he started. He was brokering an American stocklot to China I believe from his home office in Russia.

2: Also, if you are just brokering the deals, how does payment work? The buyer pays the seller, the seller pays you?

Precisely
3: Do you ever have trouble collecting payment?

Never even once. Its about creating a symbiotic relationship with your seller, only they really need you more than you need them. You can set up a contract with them, but most of them work just as well on their word. They want you in their network once they find out you can sell. You just agree with them that you also get a cut of repeat sales, and usually your buyers also respect you, because you know other manufacturers too and can get them more good deals. There may be a bad apple here and there, but I have never had an issue myself. My buyers come to me when they want a repeat order...once one went to one of my sellers, and my seller sent them back to me and said "go through John".

Thats been my personal experience. You can always create a contract, but your buyers can just go in under a different company name anyway and buy around you if they are dishonest unless you get an exclusive contract for every unit the seller has, and thats not likely. They usually try to maintain more than one broker relationship.

Your friend in Russia who brokered US deals...did he call them too or did he email the sellers? I work full time during business hours and mostly deal by email for prospecting. Then sometimes they call or I call and we discuss things, but the initial approach is done by email, simply due to lack of time to cold call. I make calls during breaks to current clients, but that's it. I know I lose a lot of potential clients like this, but that's fine since I still get some for just taking action.

Originally Posted by John Durham

No prob Stranger, you can do this from ANYWHERE...

1: Can you do this from Canada?

I had a WF guy here from Russia make a $15,000 commission on a sale 8 weeks after he started. He was brokering an American stocklot to China I believe from his home office in Russia.

2: Also, if you are just brokering the deals, how does payment work? The buyer pays the seller, the seller pays you?

Precisely
3: Do you ever have trouble collecting payment?

Never even once. Its about creating a symbiotic relationship with your seller, only they really need you more than you need them. You can set up a contract with them, but most of them work just as well on their word. They want you in their network once they find out you can sell. You just agree with them that you also get a cut of repeat sales, and usually your buyers also respect you, because you know other manufacturers too and can get them more good deals. There may be a bad apple here and there, but I have never had an issue myself. My buyers come to me when they want a repeat order...once one went to one of my sellers, and my seller sent them back to me and said "go through John".

Thats been my personal experience. You can always create a contract, but your buyers can just go in under a different company name anyway and buy around you if they are dishonest unless you get an exclusive contract for every unit the seller has, and thats not likely. They usually try to maintain more than one broker relationship.

I feel bad for asking John questions that aren't related to the thread but I was very interested in his method of brokering deals. But its only fair that I answer your question.

No skin off my back stranger11, John is well known in here and was just merely sharing indepth his strategy as a broker and getting leads also. He was just replying to a question, and that is fine by me.

In a nutshell, this is basically helping US manufacturers unload the tons of units of distressed (Throw away) merchandise, and get it off their primary market... by selling it to overseas companies at liquidation prices. You mark it up a few cents on 20,000 units you make a few grand.

Do you find that some times of the year are better than others? I would assume the best time to do this is at the end of their fiscal year, but then again every business's fiscal year is different.

Originally Posted by John Durham

In a nutshell, this is basically helping US manufacturers unload the tons of units of distressed (Throw away) merchandise, and get it off their primary market... by selling it to overseas companies at liquidation prices. You mark it up a few cents on 20,000 units you make a few grand.

John, I sent you a pm. I cannot find your WSO on it, is it on your other forum? I know I can figure most of it out myself, but I figured since you have so much experience, getting some of the scripts you use to communicate with the buyers and sellers would be helpful.

Originally Posted by John Durham

In a nutshell, this is basically helping US manufacturers unload the tons of units of distressed (Throw away) merchandise, and get it off their primary market... by selling it to overseas companies at liquidation prices. You mark it up a few cents on 20,000 units you make a few grand.

1.) Referrals - It's the least expensive and most powerful form of marketing there is. When I get a referral I find that 95% of my "selling" is done. Someone they trust gave them my name... In many cases when I get a referral it feels like the customer is saying...

Referrals are the best... but can be the fastest way to failure if we wait on them.

Most people do not refer, no matter how much they like us or the company. Also,
one needs to have a source to get referrals. If we have only a handful of customers
we not get any.

I like warm leads best. For me, direct mail and email marketing work well
at doing this. Another way is having a third party 'warm' the lead. Like
it is done through an affiliate, I get introduced to their customer list through
them.

Almost nobody knows about joint joint ventures in the offline world, those
that do have greater success.

Help others freely by helping them solve problems they are facing... without expecting anything immediately in return.

Always works. Always will.

you are right!, but this is very very dangerous.

There is a fine line here between pleasure and pain.

My business in the offline world is flourishing. But when I started I use to show businesses how much I care, by helping for FREE. WOW! what a god damn big mistake that was.

Let me explain....

One client took 2 days out of me, while I was not working on my business and making him massive amounts of cash. I showed him list building also for his online business and set it up for FREE..... and he did not become a customer of mine, and has now gone on from about 30k a month profit, to over 100k I heard!

Now I am a big believer in the laws of the universe, in that you have to give to receive...yes... I accept that, however like i said there is a fine line there. You have to choose to work for FREE to help enough and then get them to paying clients.

Do not let them zap all your energy, good will and time.... DO THIS, and you will kill your business and your money making venture faster than you can say POOR GOOD SAMARATIN.

After alot of testing and good intuition, you can start to tell those who are using you and those who are serious about their business. You can usually say you will expose them to strategies for a set amount of time to show them. But again, you run the risk of become victim to the leeches. They are out there, so while I agree with this, you have to becareful...and remember time is money!

The time you spent 7 hours helping out some guy, you think is gunna become a client is 7 hours you cannot get back. And for me lead generation and what I can do in 7 hours THESE days is pretty killer.

I am not saying do not do this, but be very very careful here. There is a fine line between pleasure and pain, that I have mastered now, and I am sure alot of people here know what I am talking about.

Determining what I want to offer BEFORE engaging in any type of lead generation.

BAYO

Im surprised to hear you say that Bayo. Some would say that to go in with a pre determined offer is to be selling a commodity. I may technically agree, but then, I dont disagree with the all around value of selling commodities.

Im surprised to hear you say that Bayo. Some would say that to go in with a pre determined offer is to be selling a commodity. I may technically agree, but then, I dont disagree with the all around value of selling commodities.

Hi John,

I may have not communicated clearly, so let me explain.

There are certain services I don't offer because they don't fit with what my consulting skill-set, maybe I don't want to use outsourcing or they just don't fit with what our business does. So those are out as lead generators.

I always select an industry that meets my client profile. Those industries share general/similar problems e.g. figuring out how to make their service more tangible for instance so they overcome engagement or buying issues.

There are numerous ways our company help, but when planning out our objectives and strategy for the upcoming quarter, we first figure out evidence of the problems we're going to focus on and what target market.

We then work on how to take what's working and add as much personalization as possible for each business or how to introduce or add something that delivers a different and valuable service or product.

Selling a Commodity

If you (not you as in John) sell something that the business can get from somewhere else and it's going to be pretty much the same, give and take a few things, then that's a commodity. No differentiation and available elsewhere at pretty much the same price with the end product being pretty much the same, think SEO, Facebook marketing etc.

In my business, we never offer commodities and it's the main reason why we don't use cold calling as a strategy. Local email marketing could be called a commodity but it's how it's perceived that makes the difference - this also dictates our approach to generating leads for the service, either way we would not cold-call to introduce ourselves.

I've said it in the past and would like to repeat it for clarity. The only time we would cold-call using the phone or email is when there's no other way to reach the prospect. That's the only time we would do it.

Remember, when responding to posts about perplexity with cold-calling, I can only mention and offer up things we do in our small business consulting, things we implement for clients and Offline Consultants I've worked with.

If cold-calling works for others then that's what they can talk about too.

Great stuff John. A few weeks ago some guy I know needed 1,000 - 5 gallon buckets of Valprene - 250. I didn't even once consider going on Alibaba. He wound up getting them through one of his business friends, but at least I'll know now for the future. Even if Alibaba doesn't carry them... I'm sure I can find them somewhere else (when he runs out).

During the sale is where you'll begin planting the seeds for referrals - If you're doing a great job for the client, this is the stage where you should begin asking "who else do you know who might..." Or "You know, I have really enjoyed working with you, and having you as a client... Who else do you know who might also benefit from our services?" It's such a simple question, and it works... Too timid to ask? Then don't expect the client to volunteer.

After:

After the sale is made, and the products delivered (Ongoing?) - Now is the time to strike -I always made it a point to have one of my team drop off a post sale survey form. This form asked them to rank our services on a scale of 1 - 10. (In various areas) - The final question asked for referrals (If you were happy with your services, would you..." Simple "Like fries with that?" approach. Again, it works.

Pay attention to the details and you'll find several opportunities during your sales cycle to ask for referrals.

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